Kalbasi is an international human rights activist. She said that social injustice and "institutionalized gender apartheid" experienced in Iran are what have influence her writing and life in a 2008 Writer's Digest interview. She addresses the horrors that she faced in Iran, which devastatingly people still face today, in her writing. Her poems focus on the discrimination, violence, inequality and injustices that women face around the world, especially Iranian and Middle-Eastern women.
Her poem, "For Women of Afghanistan," details the unfortunate life of women in Afghanistan and how their lives depend on a man and they are subject to living without dignity. It is heart-wrenching to imagine women in the Middle-East are subject to such violent and unfulfilling lives because they are women. Kalbasi uses her gift of writing beautiful and haunting poetry to address the injustice, oppression, and discrimination that women of Middle-Eastern countries face every day. She has published three collections of poems to date: Echoes in Exile which is written and published in English, Sangsar (Stoning) which is in Persian and Seven Valleys of Love which is both in Persian and English.
According to the Voices Education website, Kalbasi is the director of the Poetry of Iranian Women project. She has worked for both the United Nations and the Center for non-Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Denmark. Other work she's done included voluntarily teaching refugee and disadvantaged children in the Middle-East.
She was a writer for the 2013 documentary, "Women on the Front Line." IMDB states "this essential documentary film focuses on Iranian women's rights activists who are on the forefront of a decentralized but surprisingly powerful movement." The film features female activists as they speak out against gender inequality and the strives they have made in their misogynistic cultures; showcasing that as much as society tries to beat them down, they get back up.
Sheema Kalbasi falls into the category of "warrior women" because she uses the horrific experiences she has overcome and her gift of the written word to speak for women without a voice. Kalbasi moved to the United States and escaped the torture so many women face; she easily could have forgotten her roots. But, she hasn't. She uses her Iranian heritage and her success in life to draw attention and tirelessly express how much hatred, violence, and misogyny still exists in this world. "Women on the Front Line" gives the active feminists and "warrior women" of Iran a platform and an outlet to show they will not stop until equality and justice are reached. That is the important gift that anyone can give to those women. I admire the way Kalbasi uses her power as a writer to denounce hatred and misogyny. She gives women who are oppressed a voice.
Sources:
Famous Poems and Poets. Sheema Kalbasi Biography, 2010, http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/sheema_kalbasi/biography. Accessed Sept. 20, 2017.
IMDB. Women on the Frontline, 2013, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3882132/. Accessed on Sept. 20, 2017
Voices Education. Sheema Kalbasi, 2008 http://voiceseducation.org/content/sheema-kalbasi. Accessed Sept. 18, 2017.
World Pulse. 5 Minutes with Iranian Women: Hope and Despair: Iranian Woman Living in Exile Sheema Kalbasi, 2011, https://www.worldpulse.com/en/community/users/omid/posts/17186. Accessed Sept. 18, 2017
Writer's Digest. Exclusive Interview with Poet Sheema Kalbasi, 2008, http://www.writersdigest.com/editor-blogs/poetic-asides/poets/exclusive-interview-with-poet-sheema-kalbasi. Accessed Sept. 20, 2017.
When I think about the conditions of the Middle East, I feel a kind of coldness in the pit of my stomach. Empathy is a learned skill more often than it is an instinct, and that terrifies me. If only we were born seeing each other, how much evil would really get done?
ReplyDeleteI looked up some of Kalbasi's other poetry and it's pretty good, although lacking the same references she's drawing from is occasionally frustrating. I hope the work she and warriors like her are doing will see the change they dream about. I feel like just living has enough pain. Cruelty as the output of rage is one thing, you can at least understand it, but cruelty as an output of culture is about as fundamental as failure can be.